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Contest
Contests are different than the science puzzles in Foldit. The key differences are that contests: * are created by Foldit players (not the Foldit science team) * can run for up to 30 days (older contests could run for years) * require players to join * may involve large proteins * don't award global points Contests are used for variety of purposes: *competition for a group of students *testing recipes *testing new strategies Creating a contest There are two types of contest in Foldit: custom and template. Custom Contests New in 2019, custom contests allow a contest to be created with any protein. See Custom Contests on the Foldit web site for the basic steps. The details are described in a paper by members of the Foldit team. Setting up a custom contest requires working with the PDB file format. A knowledge of Rosetta configuration files may also be required for more complex contests. Template Contests Template contests are based on existing Foldit puzzles, and are simple to create. No knowledge of file formats is required. There's a fixed list of puzzles that can be used when creating a template contest. Some of these puzzles have specific proteins, with a fixed primary structure and a specific starting pose. Others are design puzzles, which start as an extended chain. Most of these puzzles have a fixed number of segments or residues, but at least one lets you add or delete segments. To create a template contest, go to Add Contest on the Foldit web site. Give the contest a name and a description, and select one of the available puzzles from the list. Finally, pick a start date and an end date for the contest. Finally, click "Save" to create the contest. Running a contest When you have created a contest, you get a link to allow people joining it. You can share the link with others to allow them to join the contest. The contest can also be found on the Contests page on the Foldit web site. (Previously, contests could be made open to all players. Contests now require an invitation via the "join" link. The join link is not specific to a particular player, so there's always the possibility of it getting shared more widely than intended.) As the creator, you have control over the contest. This allows you to delete the contest. You can also delete users or groups from your contest. Please use these powers for good. Being able to delete the contest is good if you accidentally select the wrong protein. When you create a contest, please make it clear in the description if you want only certain players to join. If others do join, you can delete them from the contest if desired. Sending the deleted users a message via the Foldit site would be a nice touch if you do go this route. Joining a contest .]] Contests are visible on the Foldit Contest page. You may receive a "join" link via a Foldit private message (PM), email, or other means. You must be logged in to the Foldit website to join a contest. If you don't have an invitation, you can always request one from the contest owner. Click on the owner's name on the contest page, then use the "Send Message" link to make your request. After you join a contest, it should appear in the Contests section of the puzzle menu in the Foldit client. List of template contest puzzles For a template contest, you can select one of the following puzzles: __NOEDITSECTION__ Category:The game Category:Glossary